When we started the Noise Pop Festival in 1993, we were, to the best of our knowledge, the first to use term "noise pop" to define a certain yin and yang of melody and dissonance. We've been thrilled that it's taken on a life and culture of its own, and we're proud to present this list of the genre's Top 100 songs, as chosen by the creators and team behind the festival and the Noise Pop Podcast.

We conceived of this list chronologically, and it contains songs that we feel best represent the "noise pop" sound. We dug deep to the roots and started with the earliest examples of the '70s and early-'80s bands who expertly mix melody with dissonance, like The Velvet Underground and Big Star. Moving quickly to the '80s and early '90s, we find the real progenitors of the scene, with bands like Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine. We then take a step forward and explore how modern artists have kept the noise-pop torch burning and redefined the genre for themselves — No Age, Cloud Nothings and The Men, among others.

While there was plenty of debate over certain elements of the list, we uniformly agreed that the golden era of the noise-pop sound comes from the bands of the late '80s and early '90s. This was the time that produced the amazing music that originally inspired us to create a special name for the sound, and to produce a festival to honor it — as seen and heard through the eyes and ears of a group of overlooked San Francisco bands.

When we started this list, it was hard to imagine narrowing everything down to 100 songs, but in the end we've come up with a solid representation of noise pop and its evolution into an anchor of indie rock.

Special thanks to Ted Leibowitz at Bagel Radio and Jamie Guzzi of Debaser for their suggestions.